ESPN has canceled its weekday NASCAR news show "NASCAR Now," which had been airing in the wee hours of the morning on ESPN2 during the season.

The show went on hiatus at the start of the World Cup earlier this month, and ESPN spokesman Andy Hall confirmed the show would not return.

Allen Bestwick, Dale Jarrett, Andy Petree (ESPN)

“We decided to make a change to our programming schedule as part of our ongoing evaluation process," Hall said. "Our NASCAR coverage has not been limited to one program, and we will continue to aggressively cover NASCAR across our news platforms, including SportsCenter, ESPN.com and others."

ESPN is in the final year of its contract to televise the final 17 Sprint Cup races of the season and the full Nationwide Series schedule. Next year, Fox will televise the first 16 Cup points races, plus the two non-points events and the Daytona 500 qualifying races as well as 14 Nationwide races. NBC will then take over for the final 20 Cup races and 19 Nationwide races.

“This (decision) is totally unrelated to our telecasts of NASCAR races," Hall said. "We will continue to present the race telecasts at the same high level fans expect from ESPN for the remainder of our final season."

ESPN has a long history in NASCAR and televised several races except from 2001-2006 when NASCAR first signed a consolidated season-long television deal with Fox, Turner and NBC. ESPN returned with the start of a new television deal in 2007.

"NASCAR Now has been an important daily news, highlights and information program for our fans for many years and like ESPN, we’re sad to see it go," NASCAR Vice President of Broadcasting Steve Herbst said in a statement. "With that said, we understand and support the decision and are confident that ESPN will continue to do a great job with its race broadcasts and robust, multi-platform NASCAR coverage."